


over and over again

by boo98 (butter)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, just the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butter/pseuds/boo98
Summary: Soonyoung has the easiest time finding his soulmate - running into him in the hallway at age nine kind of speeds things along. Nothing after that, though, is anywhere near as simple.





	over and over again

**Author's Note:**

> The companion piece to 'It's in the Stars', this time looking at Soonyoung and Seokmin's relationship! It's not at all necessary to have read the first one before reading this, but this does serve as a bit of a prequel to the events of IITS. 
> 
> Thanks to my twitter followers for putting up with me complaining about writing this fic for weeks (come say hi at ponyoprince on twitter, or boo98 on tumblr!). I hope you all like this ridiculous, 11 year-long slow burn!
> 
> Written for the 'The Sun and the Stars', a SoonSeok fic fest.

_-seven-_

Soonyoung is seven when he finally gets the official soulmate talk. He knows the basics, kind of, from movies and the TV shows that his mom likes to watch after they get back from the grocery store, so he really doesn’t see the need for her to make a big deal out of it all. Plus, his sister is always making sappy, gross comments about how excited she is to have a soulmate; he’s pretty sure he’s heard enough of this already.

It’s all pretty simple – if you touch someone, skin to skin, and you’re meant to be together, there’ll be a mark. It can look like a birth mark, or a patch of freckles, or a spot of redness. Sometimes it happens immediately, sometimes it sinks in slowly, but it’s supposed to be a sure thing. One of the only things you can count on.

It’s sunny out, and the rain that had been falling all morning had finally stopped almost twenty minutes ago now. His friends down the street have _got_ to have been out playing for ages. Soonyoung fidgets more from his seat at the kitchen table, knees jumping rhythmically as his leg shakes and he casts another longing look out the window over their kitchen sink.

His mom shoots him a disapproving frown and traps one of his hands between hers, getting his attention back. “Sweetie, you can go outside in a second, just listen to me for right now, ok?” She sighs and settles back in her seat a bit more, golden summer sunlight casting a shadow of her silhouette across the table. “You know this is important, right?”

“I know,” Soonyoung mumbles in agreement, and she pats his hand.

“Look, I know this all seems really far away right now, but it’s important to start planning for a soulmate early. You know how your dad and I have our marks, right? We didn’t meet until we were much older than you, when we were in college, and so we had to spend all that time before meeting each other getting prepared.”

Soonyoung glances back at the window, and catches a glimpse of a bird that flits across the frame. It’s summer break, and he’s not gonna get any better at soccer by sitting around and talking about girl stuff.

“That’s why we wear our jackets on the bus, right Soonyoung?” His mom tips her head at him, waiting for him to respond to her prompt. “Because we want to make sure that we’re ready when we get the mark. And you don’t want a girlfriend right now, do you?”

She laughs when he shakes his head immediately. “I didn’t think so. So we act a little careful, right? To make sure that when you get your mark you’re fully prepared for it.”

He nods, and she gives his hand one last squeeze before letting go. Soonyoung’s immediately up, scrambling to the front entrance to pull his sneakers on when she calls out after him. “So what are you going to make sure you do?”

“Elbows in, I know mom,” he whines out, pulling the backs of his sneakers up over his heels. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

“You better be. And don’t be late,” she calls after him, but he’s already out of the door and halfway down the sidewalk.

_-nine-_

It’s a totally normal day, at first. It’s spring, but only barely, and so the sunlight is weak and watery through the classroom window. It’s not stopping Soonyoung from tipping his head against the glass and staring at the yard outside, though, because no matter what his mom says, math is _boring_.

The gym class is playing basketball right now, and he lazily follows the path of the ball with his eyes as his teacher drones on about long division. It looks like the grade under him, judging by how much shorter the kids seem and how bad they are at getting the ball to the hoop. Soonyoung tsks quietly when one of them tries to dribble the ball but just bounces it off his sneaker and sends it flying in the opposite direction and off the court.

“Yo.” He jumps in his seat, suddenly alert, and turns to see three of his classmates peering at him carefully. “Y’okay? It’s lunch time, let’s go get snacks.”

“Oh.” Soonyoung hadn’t even realized class was over. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Their group packs together in the hallway, trying to overwhelm the crowd of students with numbers so that they can fight their way to the cafeteria. Their school isn’t huge; it’s just like any other country school that’s a decent drive away from the nearest big city. Things are always crazy during lunch, though.

Later that night his mom will hold him gently but firmly by the shoulders and get him to repeat what happened, step by step. He won’t remember it well – it all happened so quickly, and the resulting chaos almost immediately overwrote the preceding events in his memory.

Right now, though, it happens like this:

First, Soonyoung is listening to two of his friends loudly talk about how the Kia Tigers are going to make it all the way this season. He doesn’t like baseball as much as he likes soccer but he still likes baseball way more than he likes math, so he’s paying attention to them.

Second, he’s paying attention to them and not to the hallway. It’s usually not an issue, because they’re almost the oldest kids in the school now, and so people move around them and get out of their way.

But, third, he assumes that people will move around them and get out of their way, and so he doesn’t see the kid coming straight at him until it’s too late.

“Oof!” Soonyoung goes down like a pile of toothpicks, all skinny, awkward limbs. “Ow, geez.” He rubs at his collarbone, where the kid had checked him with his shoulder.

“Sorry!” Soonyoung looks at the kid, frowning. He looks younger, with a too-short haircut and a weird nose. He’s in one of the tanks they have to wear during gym class – obviously he had been on his way to change, with the gaggle of other kids hanging behind him also still in their gym clothes. “I, um, wasn’t looking where I was going.”

Soonyoung sighs but shrugs, dropping his hand away from his chest to prop himself against the floor and push himself back into a standing position. “’s okay, I wasn’t either. Are you alright?”

The kid doesn’t respond – he’s looking up at Soonyoung with wide eyes, gaze stuck somewhere below his chin.

One of Soonyoung’s friends, the Tigers fanatic, bumps against Soonyoung’s shoulder as he pushes forward. “What, did something knock loose when you fell?”

The kid finally scrambles up off the floor when one of the girls behind him helps him up, but his eyes remain huge. “We – you, um.” He stops, and looks quickly down at his own shoulder.

Soonyoung’s eyes can’t help but follow. The kid’s a little tanner than him and he’s all red-faced from gym, but it doesn’t keep the bruise on his shoulder from showing up clearly on his skin. Soonyoung watches as it seems to grow before his eyes, blooming out like a flower from the size of his thumb to a few times larger. It’s not really the blue-green of a normal bruise – it looks darker than that, maybe more brownish.

The kid blinks, and looks back at Soonyoung. Again, just a little down. Soonyoung follows his line of sight. He has to crane his head really downward to do it, but then he sees it too.

Almost obscured by the collar of his shirt, which he unbuttoned a few times during class because the sun was just warm enough to need it, is another bruise. Just like the one on the kid’s shoulder, it fades out on the edges from a dark brown into his normal skin tone.

Soonyoung touches it, prodding with his fingertips like he always does with his bruises from soccer even though his mom nags that it’ll just make them worse. It doesn’t have the same kind of bone-deep ache that those bruises have, though – instead, it just feels kind of hot to the touch.

He glances back up, and the kid is looking straight at his face now. He looks a little like he’s about to cry, and Soonyoung suddenly feels his eyes growing hot with the same urge. It’s so dumb – he’s almost ten.

Before either of them can say anything, though, one of the homeroom teachers notices the commotion out in the hallway and pokes her head out of her classroom. “Is everything ok? Why aren’t you all going to get lunch?”

“We are,” Soonyoung’s friend says, grabbing Soonyoung’s arm and tugging. “C’mon. They just ran into each other,” he explains to the teacher. “They’re ok, though, we’re going now.”

The teacher frowns and eyes the group of them over. “Goodness, did you two really run into each other that hard?”

Soonyoung sees her glance between the dark mark on his collarbones and the equally-stark one on this kid’s shoulder, and something in her eyes shifts. She blinks a few times in quick succession, and then hurries forward and carefully places a hand on each of their backs. “How about we all go see the school nurse, ok? To get some ice for those bruises.”

“What? I’m ok, it doesn’t even hurt,” Soonyoung protests, but the kid doesn’t say anything and so they both get swept down the hall and away from his friends.

They don’t take the turn they would have had to take to get to the school nurse. Soonyoung knows, he’s been there a few times when he took particularly nasty falls during gym. Instead, they hurry towards the front of the school. The teacher finally stops them at the front office, and sits them both down on a bench by the receptionist.

“You two stay here,” she says. She sounds calm but as if she’s stretched thin, like his mom’s voice when she tells him that it’s ok that he accidentally broke something of hers, because he didn’t mean to do it. “I’ll be right back to get you, ok? I’m just going to call your parents. You’re not in trouble,” she’s quick to add, when Soonyoung sputters at that. “Just stay right here.”

Then she’s gone, ducked quickly into one of the offices on either side of the room. The door closes.

They sit for a few moments, Soonyoung huffing and kicking his feet, which touch the ground but mostly because of his sneakers. He glances around the office, finally letting his gaze settle on a half-dead plant sitting in the corner.

Finally, the kid speaks. “W-What’s your name?” His voice is thick, and when Soonyoung looks over at him he’s knuckling his eyes like he’s trying to keep from crying.

He lets the kid stew for a few seconds. He’s not really sure why he’s being such a jerk, but nothing about this situation feels good. “I’m Soonyoung,” he says, finally. “I’m your hyung, probably.”

“Oh, ok.” The kid blinks and smiles a little, but it’s wobbly. “I’m Seokmin.”

Soonyoung nods. “Ok.” They look at each other for another moment. “D’you think your parents are gonna come get you?”

Seokmin shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe. What about you?”

Soonyoung slumps back in the bench so he can stretch his legs out in front of him. “Probably. My mom’ll think I got in trouble.”

“Do you get in trouble a lot?” Seokmin looks a little fascinated when Soonyoung glances at him.

“Sometimes.” Soonyoung says, even though he hasn’t ever gotten in trouble all by himself; it’s always been one of his friends, and then he got pulled into it. “I don’t know. I don’t care that much about it.”

Seokmin makes a slightly star struck noise, and Soonyoung notices that he has one hand up to carefully touch the mark on his shoulder.

Soonyoung reaches out to poke at it, and Seokmin flinches away just a little. “Does it hurt?” Soonyoung asks, drawing his hand back immediately. “Mine doesn’t. I didn’t think I ran into you that hard.”

“I ran into you, too.” Seokmin carefully touches his bruise again, eyes wide. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t think it’s a _bruise_ bruise,” he says, voice hushed.

“What kind of bruise is it then?” Soonyoung asks, even though his mom’s voice is echoing in the back of his mind, telling him to keep his elbows tucked in.

Just then the office door opens, again, and the teacher comes out with another lady, this one taller and wearing glasses. The second lady squats carefully in front of them so she’s on their eye level, which Soonyoung thinks is kind of dumb; Seokmin may just be a kid but _he’s_ not a baby.

“Your parents should be on their way,” the lady says, voice even and calm. “You’ll go home with them once they get there. Do you two understand what’s going on?”

Seokmin speaks before Soonyoung even thinks to. “We’re soulmates, right?” His voice has steadied out a lot from how shaky it was before, although he still sounds hesitant. “That’s why the bruises don’t feel like real bruises, and why they got there so fast.”

The two ladies share a look, like how adults do when they think they’re being sneaky about something. “We think so,” the one with the glasses says, looking back at them. “You’ll both have to go to a doctor to make sure, though. Sometimes the marks can act a bit weird, with you both being so young.”

Soonyoung makes a face. “I’m almost ten,” he reminds her.

She smiles at him, but it’s not a nice expression. “Right, but we still want to be absolutely positive.”

Soonyoung’s mom gets there before Seokmin’s parents do. She rushes in in a cloud of her businesswoman perfume and skids to a halt in front of Soonyoung.

“Is he alright?” She asks the lady with the glasses, sounding a bit out of breath.

“They’re both fine,” the lady responds. “I can give you the number of the mark specialist that we recommend, although if you have your own family one then you can of course use them.”

“Right.” Soonyoung’s mom looks at Seokmin as if she’s seeing him for the first time. “Are his parents coming?”

Seokmin shifts awkwardly on the bench and his shoulder, the one with the mark, bumps up against Soonyoung’s. “My dad works in Seoul, so I dunno if he’s coming.” He says, voice quiet. “My mom might, though.”

Soonyoung’s mom nods, and kneels down like the lady with the glasses had before. It’s not as annoying when she does it, although Soonyoung just kind of wishes they could leave already. “Do you want Soonyoung and me to stay until your mom gets here?”

Seokmin takes a second to think about it before he rubs at his eyes again and nods.

They end up sitting around for almost another hour, Soonyoung’s mom gently leading a conversation about their classes in school while Soonyoung stubbornly looks at the plant in the corner and Seokmin offers up shy answers to her questions. Finally, the office door opens again, and they all look over as another woman hurries in.

She checks over Seokmin, fussing the whole time, before she seems to notice Soonyoung and his mom. Their moms pull away from them a bit and talk quietly to each other, and Soonyoung glances over at Seokmin one more time.

“You were in gym class before lunch, right?”

Seokmin blinks at him, confused at the change in subject. “Um. Yes?”

Soonyoung nods. “You need to work on your dribbling. I saw you hit the ball off your shoe, from out the window.”

“Oh.” Seokmin ducks his head and tugs at the hem of his gym shorts. “Ok.”

Soonyoung gets taken to the doctor right afterwards, when the rest of his friends are in Korean class. It’s not his normal doctor; instead it’s this old man with thick glasses who carefully measures the spot on his collarbones and asks him a lot of questions.

“And you’re sure that you both ran into each other?” He asks, writing something down on a clipboard. “It wasn’t that he ran into you, and you were just standing still?”

“No,” Soonyoung says for what feels like the tenth time as he eyes one of the posters that’s hanging on the wall. “We were both walking, we just didn’t see each other coming.”

The doctor hums and writes a bit more on the clipboard before taking off his glasses and sliding them in the breast pocket of his coat. “It looks like a textbook case of mutual marking, then,” he directs towards Soonyoung’s mom, and she clasps her hands to her chest. “The only thing abnormal is the young age of marking, but that’s not entirely unheard of.”

“It’s a definite thing, then?” She asks.

He nods. “It’s the same as any other mark. It’s just a matter of fate, that they found each other at such a young age.”

Soonyoung’s mom sighs, and rests a hand on top of Soonyoung’s head. “It just seems so complicated.” She shakes his head a little bit and smiles at him when he looks up at her. “You should be nice to Seokmin, honey. He seems like a sweet boy.”

Soonyoung doesn’t really want to be nice to Seokmin. He’s just this random kid, and all of a sudden everyone’s acting like they should be close. Like they should get _married_ , which is just gross. Soonyoung doesn’t really want to marry anyone, especially not right now. He still hasn’t beaten the video game he got for Christmas.

His sister gives him a weird look across the dinner table that night, picking at her vegetables with her chopsticks. “I hear the kid has a _boyfriend_ now,” she half-teases.

Soonyoung tries to kick her under the table but just stubs his toe against one of the chair legs, and his mom tsks at his sister.

“You know just as well as I do that young markings are very fragile,” she says to her sternly, completely over Soonyoung’s head as he shoves a huge clump of rice into his mouth. “It may end up completely platonic for all we know.” His mom shoots him a careful look that he doesn’t return. “It may make things a bit… complicated, down the road, but it’s nothing to panic over, despite popular opinion.”

Soonyoung’s sister lets the subject drop at that, switching instead to whining about her exam that Friday, and Soonyoung is the first to finish dinner and take off to his bedroom. He flops face-down onto his bed and stays there for a little while, and he’s still there when his mom comes in later to check on him and ask about homework.

“I can’t do homework,” he mumbles into his pillowcase as she sits down on the edge of his bed and places a hand carefully on his back. “I can’t go back to school, can I switch schools? They’re all gonna laugh at me, getting bonded to a baby.”

“Seokmin’s only a year under you,” his mom reminds him gently. “Why will they laugh at you?”

Soonyoung does his best shrug for being half-suffocated in his pillow and turns his head so he can breathe better. “He’s a _baby_ and he’s probably not even good at sports. He’s gonna try to tag along with me and none of my friends will want him there and so they’ll ditch me too.”

“I don’t know about _that_ ,” she says, rubbing slow circles on his back. “Seokmin has other friends too, I’m sure. Just wait and see, I’m sure nothing will be as bad as you think.”

Soonyoung huffs and lays there for a bit more before perking up a little. “D’you think I can bring in a doctor’s note, for missing homework? I _did_ go to a doctor today, after all,” he adds, sensing his mom’s hesitance.

She lets a pause linger in the air before sighing out a laugh and patting his back more solidly. “I think we can probably swing that, just this once.”

_-thirteen-_

“Yo,” Soonyoung grunts out as he falls to a seat on the grass.

Seokmin looks up and grins at him, teeth shiny with braces. “Hey hyung,” he says. “How’s your summer been?”

Soonyoung shrugs and works on unwrapping the bread that he’d grabbed from the convenience store after dance lessons. “Normal, boring. My mom’s been trying to get me to do my summer homework, but I can’t write book reports when it’s this nice out.”

Seokmin nods and leans back against the tree he’s sitting against, pushing his legs out in front of him. “Tell me about it. I haven’t even started the math problems we got assigned.”

Somewhere around the winter that Seokmin turned eleven he and Soonyoung had decided to actually try being friends. Before that it had been mostly Soonyoung avoiding Seokmin and any mention of the whole soulmate thing – he had been convinced that Seokmin was just some dumb kid, and he had been much more interested in hanging out with his own friends than with him.

Eventually, though, his mom stopped nagging him about it and the freedom from that had let Soonyoung carefully reach out to Seokmin again. He wasn’t so bad, now. He was old enough to know which TV shows were the best, and sometimes they’ll play soccer with Soonyoung’s friends even though they still get a little weird about the soulmate thing.

“Didja have dance class?” Seokmin asks, and wiggles the fingers on his upturned hand at Soonyoung until he begrudgingly rips off a piece of bread for him.

“Yeah.” Soonyoung had only just started dancing, maybe a year ago now, because his sister quit lessons and he figured that he could probably do better than her. Turns out he could. “Are you still in summer classes?”

Seokmin frowns around the food in his mouth and swallows before answering. “Yeah, but just once a week.” He tips his head back to look at the sun through the leaves. “We should go swimming, or something, one of these days.”

“Totally.” It’s still weird, a little. He likes Seokmin fine, but it’s strange to think that the only reason he knows him at all is because of the marks and all the mess. “Wanna go now? To the river, maybe.”

Seokmin looks at him, eyes wide. “Will your mom let you go by yourself?”

“Of course.” Soonyoung stretches his arms high above his head, the bread wrapper lying forgotten at his side. “It’s kind of nice, being the middle kid. You don’t get half as much nagging as the older one, or the baby.”

“Then, sure.” Seokmin grins widely at Soonyoung, the kind of smile that he started being able to break out of the kid after a few months of tentative friendship. “Let’s go!”

They scramble up from the grass and lazily head towards the river, Seokmin trotting on Soonyoung’s heels. He’s still shorter than him but he’s been catching up, lately, and Soonyoung pretends that he doesn’t mind it. Seokmin gets so cheery when he compares each of their heights, it would be cruel to stomp on that.

They swing by another convenience store and Soonyoung buys cola and some snacks, and pays for them both even though he knows Seokmin gets more in allowance than he does. He’s the hyung after all. He does make Seokmin carry the plastic bag.

The riverbank is lined with a small park, although it’s all mostly just open grass. They dump their stuff on the spot where the grass leads into the rocky beach, Soonyoung with his sports bag half-full from dance class and Seokmin with the snacks. Soonyoung heads out onto the rocks first, careful to balance on them with his thin-soled sneakers that have worn in from running around, and lets Seokmin follow on his heels like usual.

The river is lazy with the recent lack of rain they’ve had – it’s been a dry summer, and so it’s not as high as it normally is and it runs slowly down the banks. Soonyoung finds a wide, flat rock and plops down. He doesn’t say anything, but he leaves enough room for Seokmin to sit next to him.

Seokmin does. “My mom wanted me to see if you could come over for dinner sometime this weekend,” he says, the words muffled as he bends forward over his knees to pick through the pebbles by his feet. “She says she hasn’t seen you in a while, not since you came to my noona’s birthday.”

Soonyoung hums and cracks open the bottle of soda he’d brought with him, letting it fizz slightly over his knuckles. It’s all shaken up from the rough swinging of the bag. “Sounds good.” He watches Seokmin inspect and then toss away a few pebbles. “Whatcha looking for?”

“Something good for skipping,” Seokmin answers, straightening up finally when he finds a rock that’s smooth and flat. “Wanna try?”

Soonyoung swigs from the bottle, careful to lean to the side so the errant soda foam falls on the riverbank and not on his shirt. “I suck at skipping rocks.”

“I’ll teach you.” Seokmin takes the soda from him and waits while Soonyoung begrudgingly sifts through the pebbles before finding a suitable one, and then heaves himself up off the rock that they’re sitting on. “It’s all in the wrist.”

Soonyoung snorts but follows him towards the riverbank. “You sound like you’re such an expert.”

“Because I am!” Seokmin frowns at him, eyes bright and brows furrowed, but it quickly breaks into a wide grin. “I bet you’ll be able to do it by the time we go back home.”

Soonyoung can’t help but grin back, which just encourages Seokmin even more. The kid is tireless, sometimes, and now is one of those times. He ends up scrambling up and down the river bank to replace the rocks that Soonyoung chucks out into the river with nothing more than a single splash.

Eventually Soonyoung graduates to making the rocks skip twice, which Seokmin receives with a loud whoop. Several birds scatter out of a tree to the side of the bank at the noise, but Seokmin just rounds on Soonyoung and pulls him into a tight, squeezing hug.

“You got it, hyung!” Seokmin draws back but stays close, eyes bright. “Told you, I’m an expert teacher.”

Soonyoung feels his eyes squint up with his smile and he pushes away, laughing kind of bashfully. “Maybe I’m just actually a rock skipping prodigy, and I’ve been trying to fail just to give you something to do.”

Seokmin barks out a laugh the way he does when he doesn’t need to be quiet and skips to follow him. “You’re so nice, hyung. The nicest hyung I have, definitely.”

“I better be.” Soonyoung straightens back up with a few rocks and taps them against each other thoughtfully. “How many other hyungs do you really hang out with, anyways?”

Seokmin shrugs. “Not many, I guess. Some from church choir, and then your friends.”

“Well, I know I’m definitely nicer than those punks.” Soonyoung’s allowed to be a bit brutally honest – they’re _his_ friends, after all.

Seokmin trips over his shoelaces a bit to turn and follow Soonyoung back to the rock they dropped their stuff by. “They’re not that bad.”

“I dunno.” Soonyoung pauses and eyes the rolling surface of the river before taking aim and throwing one of the rocks. _Splash, splash._ “They don’t like you that much, huh?”

There’s a long enough of a pause for Soonyoung to worry that he said something too mean, but then Seokmin throws his own rock from next to him. _Splash, splash, splash, splash._ “I guess not.”

“I mean, it’s not like that,” Soonyoung sputters a bit, glancing at Seokmin. “It’s just – the marks freak them out, you know.”

“I know.” Seokmin’s jaw ticks a little as he keeps looking out over the lake, and he rears back to throw another rock. This one hits the surface and sinks like a boulder. “I don’t have to keep hanging out with you and them, if you don’t want. If it makes them act weird.”

“It’s ok.” Soonyoung isn’t really that sure if he likes his friends all that much these days either. “The girls in my dance lessons would probably like you.”

Seokmin turns just a shade more towards him and glances over out of the corner of his eye. “You’re gonna introduce me to girls?”

Soonyoung can’t help but shove at him, which sends Seokmin stumbling to the side and laughing loudly again. “You weirdo, you’re not their type.”

“Aww, why not?” Seokmin swipes his hand through his hair to push it off of his forehead and smiles widely at him, full-on. “I know, I’m just _too_ handsome.”

“And so humble.” Soonyoung snorts on a laugh and throws his last rock with a tight snap that sends it skipping three times, to the proud crowing of Seokmin. “Nah, all they do is talk about high school boys during water breaks. They’d probably think you’re adorable, though.”

They absolutely would. Kyulkyung is Seokmin’s age but goes to an international school a little further of a bus ride away, and she and the rest only stop talking about high school boys when they decide to bug Soonyoung about his mark. They would _love_ actually meeting the other end of the whole thing.

Seokmin grin turns a little shy and he kicks at some of the smaller pebbles with the toe of his shoe. “You can introduce me sometime, then.”

They go to grab their bags when the sun finally gets close to touching the line of the horizon and dusk creeps in on the edges of the day. Seokmin ends up stealing Soonyoung’s warm-up jacket from his dance bag when it cools off a bit more, and they trudge back to their neighborhood.

“D’you just wanna come over for dinner? You can probably use our phone to call your mom when you get there, if you want,” Seokmin adds, rocking on his feet when they reach the edge of his side of town. “My mom said she’s making kimchi stew and stuff.”

Soonyoung glances down the side street to the right, the way he’d have to go if he went home from here. He scratches at his collarbone absent-mindedly, noting the faint heat of the mark that he’s gotten mostly used to by now. “Yeah, sure. That sounds good.”

 

Later that summer, as August is trailing on and the days grow just a bit shorter, Soonyoung makes it to four skips for the first time. Seokmin takes all the credit for it, but the kid is easy enough to push into the water in retaliation.

Their moms have both gotten used to calling each other to see if their son is at the other’s house. They usually are.

_-seventeen-_

The problem with having a soulmate basically all through school is that nobody else really wants to bother trying anything with Soonyoung. His friends now are mostly new ones, kids from the first year of high school who had just looked at Soonyoung’s mark, nodded, and said, “Cool.” They all have girlfriends by now, or at least gotten a confession or two, and meanwhile Soonyoung has nothing to show for the last few years except a subpar chemistry grade and a soulmate who hasn’t stopped a slow and steady growth spurt that started when he was fourteen.

That, combined with a gradually-dawning realization that maybe girlfriends aren’t exactly up his particular alley either, lead to too many sweaty mornings that make Soonyoung grateful that his sister is off at college by now. She would definitely give him shit for how often he finds himself doing such stealthy laundry at five in the morning.

It’s not a big deal.

It’s just, maybe, a little annoying that he can’t seem to remember dreaming about anything other than half-formed images of wide, toothy grins and the way that Seokmin’s shoulders are just a tiny, tiny bit broader than his now.

So Soonyoung has a plan, and he thinks it’s kind of brilliant. He introduces it in the middle of one of their usual video game sessions in Seokmin’s basement, his feet pushed into Seokmin’s lap and Seokmin’s stretched out on the ground.

“Hey.” He shakes his foot enough to jostle Seokmin’s controller and get him knock the left trigger enough to make something on the screen explode. “Yo, pause for a second.”

Seokmin dutifully hits the menu button and peers over at Soonyoung on the other end of the couch. “What?”

It’s weird to just say it out loud, out of nowhere, but Soonyoung has to be the one setting an example and everything. “So – soulmates, right?”

Seokmin blinks at him and then cracks a hesitant smile. “Um. Yeah? I thought we covered this one a while ago.”

“Nooo,” Soonyoung whines, tipping his head back against the arm of the couch to pout at the ceiling. “I mean, we’re soulmates. That’s a, you know, a _dating_ thing, obviously.”

Seokmin clears his throat after a moment and when Soonyoung tips his chin back down to look at him his ears are a little pink in the dim light of the basement. “Usually, yeah. We’re, you know,” he ducks his head down to fiddle with the controller in his hands. “We’re kind of a special case, though.”

Soonyoung squishes the side of his face against the couch as he peers at Seokmin. “Yeah, I guess.” He wiggles his feet in Seokmin’s lap only for the other boy to grab his ankles to still him. “D’you think I’m cute?”

Seokmin snorts immediately, which Soonyoung is kind of insulted by. “You? Cute?” He tickles the bottom of Soonyoung’s foot, which almost gets him a kick to the nuts for his trouble when Soonyoung squawks and yanks his feet back. “I guess you’re cute, the way that puppies are cute.”

Soonyoung pouts and forces himself to sit up straighter so he can cross his legs in front of him on the couch cushions. “If anyone’s the puppy in this situation it’s you. But really,” he continues, and messes with a loose thread on the seam of the cushions. “Would you want to date me?”

Seokmin hums a little and eyes him over. Soonyoung’s suddenly, stupidly over-aware of his ratty jeans and t-shirt that have both seen better days. “I dunno. I’m supposed to, right? Want to?”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Soonyoung scratches idly at a mosquito bite right on his anklebone where it juts out, pushing through his skin. “It’s like, we don’t have any other option, really. And, no offense, but I don’t really think I want to date you.” That’s not the word he would put on this weird, hot mix of emotions that tumble through his gut these days, anyways. It’s too unstable for a word like ‘date’, for the sense of permanency that writes itself through everything about soulmates.

“I guess,” Seokmin says, and if Soonyoung didn’t know him better he would think he sounded a little disappointed. “Yeah, you’re right.” He shrugs a little. “What do you wanna do, then?”

This is the part that Soonyoung had spent the most time thinking about, and so he’s pretty successful at making his voice sound confident when he says, “I think that we should both date other people before we try dating each other. If we even do that,” he adds hurriedly, when Seokmin looks back over at him, startled. “Just, you know. We should be sure that this is a real thing, and not just us being all,” he wiggles his fingers. “Being all ‘he’s your soulmate so you have to like him’. You know?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Seokmin hesitates, and tilts the controller in his hands from side to side. “There’s not, like, a time limit on that, is there?”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno.” Seokmin doesn’t look at him, just tilts his head back against the back of the couch to blink up at the ceiling. Soonyoung doesn’t get distracted by the new push of his Adam’s apple at his throat. “There’s no one I’d really want to date right now, is the thing. And you’re going to college soon.”

Soonyoung groans at that. “Don’t remind me. My application for SNU was just due last week, and my mom hasn’t stopped asking if I’ve heard anything from them since.”

Seokmin laughs and looks over at him again. His eyes are warm and a deep brown in the dim light of the room, and they send a slow chill of goosebumps over Soonyoung’s arms that he casually tries to rub away. “You’ll get in, I’m not worried.”

“Explain that to her,” he grouses. “But, anyways, yeah – no time limit. I dunno, maybe it’s dumb, but I just feel like it’s important.”

“Sure,” Seokmin allows. “So, we’ll meet back up to discuss this whenever that happens? When we have a long line of dumped exes trailing after us?” Soonyoung shoots him a look but Seokmin just grins sunnily. “I’m joking, hyung. We can do that if you want to.”

Soonyoung can tell his lips are pushing out in a pout but he sniffs and just flops his feet back in Seokmin’s lap. “Cool, now get back to trying to beat me. Maybe I’ll go easy on you for once.”

He doesn’t go easy, but Seokmin beats him anyways and Soonyoung teases for a bit about how cute it is, the grasshopper beating the master. He only stops when Seokmin grabs him around the middle and tackles him to the ground, tickling at his ribs before pulling back with a fond laugh to say something about getting snacks.

Soonyoung stays lying on his back on the carpet while Seokmin clambers up the stairs to the kitchen. The ceiling is really interesting, he muses, much more interesting than the casual strength that Seokmin’s getting in his arms these days from his mom making him help out with the yardwork. He presses the backs of his hands to his cheeks and feels the burn of them against his skin. This plan better work.

 

He gets into SNU, which is half a surprise and half not. He hadn’t been _too_ concerned about it before, but once the application got sent in it felt terrifyingly out of his hands. To get good news back in a thick envelope one day after class is thrilling and relieving. His mom hugged him tight and might have cried a little, and then Seokmin did the same thing at school the next day.

“What are you doing?” Soonyoung squirms but Seokmin’s grip is steel-tight. “Are you crying? Oh my god, don’t cry, you have math in two minutes.”

Seokmin sniffs loudly at his temple and just rocks them a little more. “You’re going to _college_. Can’t I be proud of you?”

“I mean,” Soonyoung mumbles into Seokmin’s uniform collar, “Feel free, but I need my full range of movement to study.”

“Right, yeah,” Seokmin pulls back a little and sniffles again. His eyes are only a little red, and his smile is watery when he beams down at Soonyoung. “Aren’t you excited?”

Soonyoung reaches up and pinches Seokmin’s cheeks. He hangs onto them for a moment despite Seokmin’s half-hearted protests. “Are you gonna miss your most favorite hyung?”

“I guess so,” Seokmin snarks back, hands squeezing at Soonyoung’s hips. “I’ll have to find a new favorite hyung while you’re gone, though.”

Soonyoung tuts and pats Seokmin’s cheek. “You’ll be the oldest at school, you have to set an example for all the kids.”

A group of said kids suddenly burst noisily out of one of the classrooms down the hall from where they had stopped for Soonyoung to break the news about SNU, and it’s almost comical how quickly Soonyoung pulls back from Seokmin when he notices them. Seokmin’s hands drop, too, as if he didn’t realize he still had them on Soonyoung.

The students pass them easily, and Seokmin grins a little shamefacedly at Soonyoung. “I should get to class, set a good example.”

Soonyoung nods, for all that he feels strangely like his feet were swept out from under him. “Yeah, go study hard.” He punches Seokmin lightly in the arm. “Gotta keep your grades up so maybe you’ll be a big-time college student like me one day.”

Seokmin grins wider and nods. “I’ll do that.” He spins on the ball of one foot to head the opposite way down the hall, and makes it a few yards before turning again and waving a hand above his head. “Congratulations again, hyung!”

Soonyoung shushes him but shoves his hands in the pockets of his school trousers and watches until Seokmin turns the corner.

 

The school year winds down and Soonyoung can tell that he’s being a little clingy with Seokmin, but so is the other guy. They’re over at each other’s houses almost every afternoon, even through finals when Soonyoung lies on Seokmin’s bed and quizzes him on English vocab while Seokmin searches college packing tips for him.

“Because you won’t think to do this and you’ll just try to shove everything into the car trunk the day before,” Seokmin defends himself, pointing a pen at Soonyoung from his desk. “You’re lucky you have me around.”

“Sure.” Soonyoung flips through the flashcards Seokmin had made before tossing them to the side and stretching out against his pillows. “I’m just blessed with the _best_ soulmate out there.”

Seokmin snorts but doesn’t respond, having gone back to clicking at his laptop from across his small bedroom. Soonyoung twists a little so he can get more comfortable against Seokmin’s pillows while he taps out a quick text to his mom on his phone.

He sends the message and drops his phone to burrow a little more fully into the pillows. It’s funny, he muses, closing his eyes against the light of Seokmin’s room, but for how long they’ve known each other he’s still not completely used to the very specific way all of Seokmin’s clothes and things smell. It’s nothing bad, just a particular brand of warm musk that is connected inextricably with comfort in his subconscious.

Seokmin is his longest, closest friend by now. That just makes sense. It’s nothing to do with the warm burn of the round, dark mark that spreads over his collarbone.

He must fall asleep. It’s not that surprising; he was up late the night before working on an essay, and he had three hours of dance practice between classes and coming over to Seokmin’s. He’d essentially showered and then collapsed onto Seokmin’s bed.

The room is darker when he wakes up. Soonyoung doesn’t realize at first what did wake him up – it’s more like one second he was dozing, not asleep enough to dream, and the next he was blinking fuzzily at Seokmin.

Seokmin smiles and pats Soonyoung’s hip from where he’s kneeling by the side of the bed. He must have shaken him, Soonyoung’s mind puts together like the easiest puzzle in the world.

“You were out like a light, hyung,” Seokmin says. He keeps his voice hushed like he’s still worried about waking Soonyoung up, but all it does is make it rasp just a bit in his throat. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have made you come over to help me study if I knew you were that tired.”

Soonyoung furrows his brow at Seokmin and sleepily shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good. I just – “ He breaks into a yawn halfway through the sentence, and forces himself into a sitting position. “I should probably head home, I guess.”

Seokmin frowns at him as Soonyoung tries in vain to flatten the hair at the back of his head and gathers up the things he had strewn around Seokmin’s bed. “D’you want me to walk you home? It’s dark out.”

“So chivalrous,” Soonyoung teases him when he finally stands up and grabs his dance bag from the ground. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“Ok, hyung.” Seokmin still walks him to the entrance of his house, and hovers while he slides his sneakers on. “I can send you the links to the packing tips I found, if you want.”

“Sure.” Soonyoung pulls his hat on and stretches down to his toes a few times to loosen up his muscles. “Sleep well, then, good luck on your exam tomorrow.”

He straightens back up and – doesn’t know what to do about the look on Seokmin’s face. It’s simultaneously fond and a little tired and something else that Soonyoung can’t read, which in itself is kind of terrifying. His stomach swoops into his sneakers as Seokmin eyes him, and then even more when he reaches out to prop a hand on Soonyoung’s hip.

There’s a dizzying moment where, for some stupid reason, Soonyoung’s more sure than anything that Seokmin’s going to lean over and kiss him. He freezes.

But, Seokmin just squeezes his side a little and nods. “Text me when you get home, then, hyung?”

“Sure thing,” Soonyoung says, and he hopes he’s imagining the shiver in his voice. “G’night.”

“Good night.”

The walk back home that night takes about twice as long as it should. Soonyoung keeps dragging his feet, sneakers scuffing against the sidewalk, and he almost makes two separate and distinct wrong turns before correcting himself. He tips his head up to look at the moon – just a thin sliver of a crescent in the sky, with a few suggestions of stars dotting the sky past the streetlights.

He really, really hopes his plan works out.

- _eighteen­_ -

College is both exactly and yet nothing at all like what he expected it to be like. His classes are hard and it’s a little crazy how many people are constantly around, never mind the difference that just being in Seoul at all means.

His roommate spends half of the time plugged into his laptop with a huge pair of headphones in and the other half of the time in the library, and so Soonyoung’s only friend at the beginning is the equivalent of a slightly acerbic and sometimes absent hat stand.

“You have friends from dance club, I’m sure,” Jihoon snarks from his desk one day when Soonyoung’s feeling particularly dramatic about it all. “You’re free to hang out with them.”

“They’re all already friends with each other.” Soonyoung is lying the wrong way on his bed so that his legs are propped up on the wall and his head is tipped over the side of the mattress so he can look at Jihoon upside-down. “It’s _intimidating_. You’re much easier to talk to.”

Jihoon shoots him a look from over his laptop screen. His headphones are plugged in but they’re just hanging around his neck right now, which is the only reason he’s responding to Soonyoung. “I am?”

“Sure,” Soonyoung says, folding his hands on top of his stomach. “You’re much cuter and nicer than you like to pretend you are.” Jihoon makes an affronted noise at that, because he loves to act like such a tough Busan guy even though half his socks have cartoon characters on them.

Jihoon finds out about Seokmin during the first week of classes, because he has only a little bit of tact and can’t help but point at his mark one morning when Soonyoung’s changing after a shower.

“What’s that from?”

“Huh?” Soonyoung actually looks down to see what he was pointing at, because it’s been ages since anyone _didn’t_ know about his mark. “Oh. Um, it’s my soul mark.”

Jihoon’s still in bed because he’s the worst morning person in the world, and he blinks sleepily at Soonyoung from his bundle of blankets. “Huh. I didn’t realize you were marked already.”

“Kind of,” Soonyoung huffs a laugh and struggles into a t-shirt. He flips his wet hair back from his face once he gets his head through the collar and ruffles it a bit to try to get it to dry faster. “It was really young, like, nine. He’s still at home, in high school.”

“Oh.” Jihoon’s mouth twists, clearly feeling awkward for having asked about something so personal. “Is he going to visit sometime?”

Soonyoung frowns. He hadn’t really thought about it. “I don’t know? Maybe, we haven’t really talked about it.”

Jihoon nods and rubs his eyes with his knuckles, clearly nowhere close to getting out of bed still. “How long’ve you guys been together?”

“Oh, um. We’re not actually dating, or anything.” He should have probably prepared for these kind of questions, Soonyoung guesses, especially if everyone’s going to give him the same kind of confused look that Jihoon’s giving him now.

“You’re soulmates, but you’re not dating?”

“Yeah, um. We’re just friends.”

Jihoon frowns at him more but drops the subject in favor of digging his earbuds out from under his pillow and flopping over onto his stomach to go back to sleep for a few minutes, and Soonyoung takes that as an excuse to make a hasty exit to go to class. 

 

He and Seokmin text, of course. At first it’s mostly Soonyoung telling him things about college, and Seokmin filling him in on their school and how Seokmin’s family is doing. It’s weird, being so far away from him for so long for essentially the first time since they met, and Soonyoung doesn’t really like how anxious it makes him.

He goes full-tilt into school instead of thinking too much about the twist in his stomach that he gets whenever his phone dings with a new text from Seokmin. The dance team is fun, full of loud girls and boys who like him because he’s good at this kind of thing. Jihoon’s great, too, and after a month or two he finally thaws enough to put up with Soonyoung sprawling half on top of him at meals and slinging an arm over his shoulder when they walk around the city.

In the end Soonyoung gets busy, and Seokmin does too. Senior year of high school is tough, never mind the college applications piled on top of it all, and by November they’re texting maybe once or twice a week.

Then, a bunch of the applied music students have a party the night after one of their big concerts that works as an assessment for the major. It’s at one of the apartments of some of the senior girls, and the whole dance team gets invited because the captain is dating one of the girls who’s hosting it.

Through some series of events Soonyoung ends up crammed on the end of a couch next to a few of the other dance freshmen, a beer sweating in his palm.

One of them, a Thai transfer in skinny jeans with his long legs stretched in front of them, leans over to prop his chin on Soonyoung’s shoulder. “Ten thousand won says that Nayoung-noona’s gonna try to make out with that voice student by the end of the night.”

Soonyoung snorts and takes a pull from his beer, just tipsy enough by now that he’s somehow sunken completely into the back of the couch. “When does Nayoung ever _not_ try to make out with a voice student or two? That’s a shit bet, Ten.”

Ten sniffs and pouts into his cup, which is half-full of some mysterious blue thing. “Boring.”

“Just practical.” Soonyoung taps his nails against the aluminum of the can and watches the crowd of people mingling in front of him with slightly hazy eyes. “Hey,” he says, elbowing Ten enough to get him to slosh a little of his drink down his shirt when he tries to take a sip. “Isn’t that Johnny? The guy you were talking about?”

Ten starts a little and just gets more juice down his front. “What, where?”

Soonyoung gestures, towards the tall guy in an out-of-season muscle tee leaning against the far wall where he’s talking to some other, shorter boy. “Over there.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ten wilts a little and lets out a sigh. “Isn’t he great? Look at his arms, they’re awful.”

Soonyoung purses his mouth and messes with the tab on his beer until it pops off. “That’s one way to put it, I guess.”

Ten whines and jumps to defend the love of his life, and Soonyoung half-listens and half-watches Johnny talk to the other guy. He’s close to zoning out when he notices a familiar beanie and messy head of brown hair approach the two on the other side of the room.

“That’s your roommate, right?” Ten asks, voicing Soonyoung’s thoughts. “Jihoon?”

“Yeah.” Soonyoung watches, brows pinching, as Jihoon leans in towards the other guy, the shorter one with messy black hair and dark circles under his eyes that do nothing to hurt his looks. “I didn’t really think he was a party type.”

“Looks like he came with a plan,” Ten mumbles into his drink, and raises his eyebrows more when Jihoon sways a little closer, laughing at something the guy says. When Jihoon turns a little to the side to sip from his cup his ears are bright red.

Eventually he loses track of him, in favor of helping Ten out in pong when he fails to secure any other partner. Soonyoung drinks more, not enough to be a disaster but certainly enough that when he stumbles into Jihoon sitting in the empty bathtub in one of the bathrooms he doesn’t question it too much.

“Mind if I…?” he starts, gesturing vaguely towards the toilet, because he _really_ has to pee and this is the only bathroom he’s seen that doesn’t have a couple hooking up in it.

Jihoon blinks blurrily at him and nods. “Yeah, knock yourself out.” He takes a hit from the half-burnt joint that Soonyoung finally notices he’s holding while Soonyoung pisses quickly.

“I didn’t realize you were here, too,” Soonyoung mentions as he washes his hands and then flaps them around to air-dry them. “We could’ve walked over together.”

Jihoon shrugs. “I wasn’t gonna come, but then Seungcheol texted me.”

“Seungcheol?” Soonyoung perches on the edge of the bathtub and accepts the joint when Jihoon offers it over to him. “Is he the guy you were talking to before? Black hair, flannel shirt?”

Jihoon nods, lips quirking into a smirk when Soonyoung inhales and immediately tries to not cough up a lung. “That’s him. He was my partner for a group project last month.”

“Oh, cool.” Soonyoung passes the joint back to Jihoon and nudges at his sneakers. “Scoot over, lemme in.”

Jihoon sighs but hauls himself closer to one end of the bathtub so that Soonyoung can slide down and sit on the other side, tangling their feet together in the middle. “You here with your dance crew?”

“You make it sound like I’m in a gang or something,” Soonyoung whines. “But, yeah, whatever. They’re nice guys.”

Jihoon smirks and reaches over the side of the tub to grab an abandoned cup of blue juice that he drops the butt of the joint into. “Glad you’ve finally made yourself some friends.”

“It’s not that hard to believe that people like me, is it?” Soonyoung digs his phone out of his jeans with some difficulty when it buzzes, almost kicking Jihoon in the ribs when he does. “I’m popular, I’m funny.”

“Hilarious.”

Soonyoung shakes his head and grins before unlocking his phone to check his texts.

_23:40_

_Hey hyung, hope you’re having a good time at school! ^^_

_I saw your pictures! You’ll have to tell me how real college parties are when you come home for winter break. Kyulkyung is jealous too, she says she misses having you in dance class._

_I have to head to sleep now, but I hope you have a good night~_

Soonyoung’s smile must have slipped because Jihoon nudges his thigh with the toe of his sneaker. “What? Bad news?”

“Nah.” Soonyoung pauses for a second with his thumb over the keyboard before locking his phone again. “Just, Seokmin saying hi.”

Jihoon hums. They haven’t really talked about Seokmin much, beyond the few stories Soonyoung’s inevitably told, because how do you try to explain how great your best friend from back home is to your new friends at college? “How’s he?”

“Fine, I think. Busy with school.”

“As always.” Jihoon messes with the collar of his t-shirt – some ratty band tee that Soonyoung guesses he probably actually bought from a concert and not just a thrift store like other people do. “He seems like a good kid.”

“He is.” They sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments, Jihoon hanging his arm over the side of the tub and staring into space while Soonyoung nurses the rest of his latest beer.

“That Seungcheol guy,” Soonyoung starts after a bit, earning himself a pointed look from Jihoon. “He was actually able to get you to leave the room and come all the way here just by texting you?”

Jihoon flushes and tugs his beanie a little further down his forehead. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Soonyoung grins and prods him a little more with his foot. “It kind of looks like it. He’s cute,” he tries, and smiles wider when Jihoon turns more red.

“Whatever,” Jihoon mumbles, and props his cheek up with his hand, face squished. “He’s obviously not that interested. I think he’s waiting for a mark, he seems the type.”

Soonyoung tuts and raises his beer can in a mock toast to Jihoon. “His loss. You’re plenty cute, mark or not. I would date you.”

Jihoon snorts and crosses his arms, leveling an amused look at Soonyoung. “No you wouldn’t, we’d both go insane.”

“Maybe, whatever, but I’d still make out with you or something. The sentiment remains the same.”

Jihoon’s eyes narrow a little from across the tub and something in the atmosphere shifts, solidifies. “Hm,” he hums under his breath, and Soonyoung silently wonders if this is what it would feel like to be stared at by someone with x-ray vision. Jihoon tips his head back just enough so that it hits the tile of the shower wall, and his eyes are a little heavy-lidded. “Is that just an observation, then? Or a suggestion.”

Soonyoung swallows, and somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear his own voice a year ago in a musty basement, convincing Seokmin of the importance of dating other people. “I dunno.” He pulls up the courage to crack a grin at Jihoon, who rolls his eyes. “Am I handsome enough for you? I gotta say, that Seungcheol guy may have body mass on me.”

“You’re alright. I don’t really want to elevate your ego any more, for everyone’s safety.” Jihoon tilts his head to the side a degree. “Wanna get out of here?”

“Um. Yeah, sure.”

Soonyoung finishes his beer and after he slightly dramatically crushes his empty can they both clamber out of the tub and weave a little clumsily through the crowd outside. They slip past a line of girls who had apparently been waiting to use the bathroom they were in and out of the party.

Jihoon seems immersed in something on his phone, and Soonyoung takes control of his weaving path by wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they head down the dark street towards their dorm. Jihoon accepts it easily enough, leaning into Soonyoung’s side as the clamber up the stairs to their room and unlock the door.

Jihoon heads in first and tosses his keys and wallet on his dresser, and Soonyoung only gets a chance to slip his sneakers off before he’s being pressed back against the closed door.

Jihoon is just barely shorter than him, but it doesn’t seem like that big of a difference with how piercing his eyes are right now in the low light of the room. He has two fingers pressed in the center of Soonyoung’s sternum, and he eyes him seriously. “You’re sure?”

Soonyoung huffs a laugh and bats away Jihoon’s hand. “Seriously, it can be chill. We’re not exactly dating material, you’re right, but.” He shrugs. “No hard feelings either way.”

Jihoon’s mouth twists to the side a little but then he’s leaning up and kissing Soonyoung. It’s – like, ok, Soonyoung may have not actually kissed anyone before, and so maybe his frame of reference is a little small, but it’s pretty great. Jihoon makes a muffled laughing noise when Soonyoung presses forward and tugs him closer, tripping him a little over the pile of shoes that never really leave the space right in front of their door.

 

Jihoon’s awesome, Soonyoung decides later, because it doesn’t get weird after that night. There are a few more music student parties where Seungcheol again completely fails to pick up on Jihoon’s flirting and he and Soonyoung end up hooking up, but by the time winter break rolls around they’ve fallen out of it.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Soonyoung wheedles as he packs up a suitcase to take home with him the day before break starts.

“Obviously,” Jihoon says sarcastically, picking through the contents of his desk in search of something. “I’m a catch.” He snaps up a normal-looking pen that’s probably actually something dumb and sentimental and lucky, and points it at Soonyoung. “Fun while it lasted, though?”

“Yeah, what, do you want a high five? Do people high five over a few successful make-outs?” Soonyoung holds his hand up and Jihoon ignores it.

It’s strange, going back home for the break. He ends up not seeing Seokmin because he’s off visiting some extended family in Daegu, and that’s strange too. Soonyoung didn’t realize it, but he had been looking forward to seeing the kid more than he thought.

He texts him, in his own bed the first night he gets back, and barely puts the phone on his side table before it’s buzzing with a call.

It’s Seokmin, because of course it is. “It’s a little late for a chat,” Soonyoung says, entirely more seriously than he actually feels.

“Hyung!” Seokmin sounds entirely too awake and cheerful. “I’m sorry I’m missing you, it’s just – my great aunt’s a little sick, nothing bad but we wanted to visit her and then it made sense to stay for Christmas and everything, I’m sorry!”

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it.” Soonyoung heaves himself up to sit back against his pillows and he blinks into the dark of his bedroom. “How are you? Sorry,” he continues, and picks awkwardly at his comforter even though Seokmin isn’t there to see him. “I know I’ve been kind of bad at texting back, these days.”

“’S ok.” There’s a muffled noise from the other end of the line, the sound of a door closing, and then Seokmin grunts like he’s sitting down hard. “I’m sure you’re busy. How were exams?”

“Alright, I think. My final grades should be up in a few days.” Soonyoung tucks his knees up and leans forward over them, propping his chin on them. “How’s the college process going?”

Seokmin groans a little and there’s the sound of soft rustling in the background. “Ugh. I really sympathize with you last year, now. High school doesn’t bother stopping at all, even when we’re all busy with applications.”

“SNU?” Soonyoung asks, a little embarrassed that he doesn’t know this.

“Yeah, but a few others too. Obviously it’d be cool to go to school with you, though.”

“Yeah.” Soonyoung rubs his eyes a bit and yawns, and must not do a great job of muffling it because Seokmin immediately catches on and makes him hang up to go to bed.

“Sleep well, hyung.” Seokmin’s probably tired, too, because his voice is going scratchy the way that Soonyoung hasn’t heard in ages, not since he was still in high school.

“You too.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, of course.”

A quick pause. “Text back more, ok?”

“’Course.”

- _nineteen-_

Things get weird the next year. Way later, Soonyoung will try to blame it all on Seokmin, who will laugh it off and remind Soonyoung that it wasn’t his fault that he had a soulmate so entirely awful at good communication.

For the time being, though, Soonyoung does average in his classes, starts being able to choreograph stuff for the dance team, and watches Seokmin get gradually further and further away.

It’s not like he never sees Seokmin since he started going to SNU too at the beginning of the year. They get food together at least a few times a week, and text way more regularly than before.

Seokmin has his own friends now, is the thing; it wasn’t so much ‘Soonyoung-and-Seokmin’, the way it was at home. Seokmin had his roommate Minghao and some of the vocal students that Soonyoung didn’t know that well, and Soonyoung had the rest of the dance team and a few music production friends that he inherited from Jihoon.

Most people didn’t even know they were mutually marked. Neither of them had really seen the point in trying to go super public about it; it wasn’t anyone’s business, not really. Sometimes people noticed Soonyoung’s mark, because it was just high enough to not quite be covered by some of his looser-fitting t-shirts, but it wasn’t exactly polite to ask about it.

Soonyoung didn’t mind. Jihoon, on the other hand - the more Soonyoung gets to know him, the more he realizes his roommate is a terrible romantic hidden under a beanie and an oversized sweatshirt. He likes to tut disapprovingly whenever Soonyoung mentions hiding his mark, and ribs him about it sometimes at the parties they go to.

Half of the songs the guy writes are love songs, no matter how much he likes to dress them up as EDM rather than gushy ballads. It’s ridiculous.

“I just don’t really get why you guys are so touchy about the whole thing.”

“It’s _weird_ , that’s all.” Soonyoung leans on the counter in the tiny kitchen section of their new apartment to watch Jihoon slice fish cakes into strips for their ddeokbokki. “He’s my best friend. Or,” he thinks aloud, squishing his cheek against the side of the fridge, “He was. Now I have you, and I can’t decide whether that’s as a best friend or, like, as a weird cat.”

Jihoon shoots him a look but doesn’t comment on the last bit and just tosses the fish cakes into the bubbling pan on the stove. “Being friends is a part of the whole soulmate deal, though. You’re supposed to like each other.”

“Yeah, but I’ve known him since I was _nine_. I can’t picture actually dating the guy, that’s so weird.”

“You really can’t imagine dating him? Like, at all?” Jihoon doesn’t look away from the pan but one of his eyebrows quirks up. “No kissing, no going on dates, no couple clothes, no nothing?”

Soonyoung swallows and looks away, down to one of the pizza delivery ads they have attached to the fridge with a SNU magnet. “No, not really.”

He didn’t exactly make a habit out of thinking about it, at least. Not since senior year of high school, when he had his whole freak out about the subject. It was almost too easy to translate their normal methods of hanging out into a ‘dating’ context. The rest, the kissing and… the rest of it – that was what was hard to imagine.

Not because it didn’t imagine it, really, but because he was kind of unnerved of how his mark got hot and itchy whenever he did. And whenever he got a new text from Seokmin that he waited a few seconds to open so that his read receipts wouldn’t show what an impatient dumbass he was. And, sometimes, in the middle of the day for no apparent reason.

Jihoon grunts in acknowledgement and turns the burner off, before shifting to face Soonyoung better. “That’s about all the advice I have for you, then.” He points the spatula at him, mouth quirking into a smirk. “Your turn to set the table, you bleeding heart.”

 

In February (because _of course_ it happens in February, just after Valentine’s Day), Seokmin gets a girlfriend.

Soonyoung kind of wonders what he did in a past life to make it so that all the fates are out to get him. He can’t have been _that_ bad. He’s a pretty nice guy.

 

“That’s her? In the red sweatshirt?”

Soonyoung shushes Jihoon and ducks down lower to try to seem as small and insignificant as possible. “Why are you yelling?”

“I’m not yelling.” Jihoon squints behind the thick frames of his glasses across the chain café near the university that they’re sitting in, mouth set in a frown. “She looks nice.”

“I’m sure she is.” Soonyoung sneaks another glance over at where Seokmin is sitting at a table with a girl, both of them beaming at each other through huge grins and chatting happily. “He’d never date anyone _not_ as stupidly nice as he is.”

Jihoon hums and sips his iced coffee. “So why are we staking them out like this instead of saying hi?”

“Because,” Soonyoung says through gritted teeth, turning back to look at Jihoon, “He hasn’t introduced me to her yet. He hasn’t said _anything_ about her. Why wouldn’t he introduce me to her?”

Jihoon levels an entirely unimpressed look at him. “Why wouldn’t he introduce his new girlfriend to his childhood best friend and soulmate? Gosh, I don’t know, that’s a tough one.”

“Thanks for the help.” Soonyoung picks at the cookie he bought instead of a drink, which is rapidly approaching being nothing more than a pile of crumbs. “I dunno, it’s dumb, but I just figured he’d at least say something to me, y’know?”

“How are you so sure she’s even his girlfriend, if he hasn’t told you that she is?”

“One of the freshmen in dance team told me.” Minghao had said it as if it was nothing during a water break one afternoon. _Oh yeah, I forgot, I told Seokmin that I’d get dinner with him and his girlfriend_ , as blatantly as anything.

Soonyoung wasn’t really proud of the noise he had made when he heard that. Minghao had peered at him from under the bill of his snapback and dryly asked if he maybe had a small animal stuck in his throat.

It was impressive vocabulary, coming from someone who had just moved to Korea a year ago.

A few days after the café stakeout, Jihoon drags him to a voice student party under the guise of playing wingman for him; he was very low-key desperate to find someone to record the vocal sample for one of his songs.

Of course they run into Seokmin and girlfriend. This university feels stupidly small sometimes.

The girlfriend – Kyungwon, Soonyoung eventually figures out – is just as nice as he thought she would be. “It’s great to meet you!” she says, grinning sunnily and brushing her short, bleached hair away from her eyes. “I’ve heard a lot about you, but it’s nice to put a face to a name.”

Soonyoung raises his eyebrows at Seokmin and ignores Jihoon’s snort from behind him. “You’ve heard a lot about me?”

“Just,” Seokmin stammers, ears bright red as he looks back and forth between him and Kyungwon, “Y’know, stories from high school and stuff.”

“He told me that he twisted his ankle one time when he was twelve trying to climb a tree and you carried him home on your back,” Kyungwon adds, giggling at Seokmin’s groan in response. “That was very chivalrous of you.”

Soonyoung is a bit of a ham, he’ll admit it, so he can’t help but beam cheekily and rub the back of his neck in mock-humility. “What can I say, I’m basically just the best friend ever.”

Kyungwon laughs brightly and asks him about the dance team, which of course sets him off on all sorts of tangents. She’s really not that bad at all, he figures.

He didn’t think she was that bad in the first place.

Not really.

It’s just, who confesses on Valentine’s Day? Isn’t that too much?

Whatever.

Before he realizes it the party is on its last, tipsy legs and he’s a little drunker than he intended to be. Apparently so is Kyungwon, because she’s red-faced and giggly and leaning heavily against Soonyoung instead of Seokmin, who’s on her other side on the couch.

“That wasn’t my fault, you were the one that threw the baseball in the first place.”

“ _You’re_ the one who was supposed to be teaching me how to play!” Seokmin argues back, with significantly less slurring involved – he’d stopped drinking after a few beers, despite the whining of the other two who called him boring. “I don’t know why you didn’t stop trying to teach me sports after all of the soccer incidents, anyways.”

“Because, Seokmin, sports are all about passion and hard work and dedication.” Soonyoung flings his hand in a wide, dramatic gesture, forgetting about the cup he’s holding and spilling water on the shitty carpet. “Woops. I couldn’t give up on my best pupil, though, what kind of coach would I be then?”

“One that loves mixing metaphors, apparently,” Seokmin teases, reaching behind Kyungwon to ruffle Soonyoung’s hair.

“You two are just so cute,” Kyungwon laughs out, patting Soonyoung on the knee of his jeans. “Is there anything you don’t know about each other?”

Soonyoung glances at Seokmin from over her head, which is probably a mistake because it gives him a full view of the way that Seokmin’s eyes shift when she says that. “I don’t know, Seokminnie,” Soonyoung says, tipping himself closer to Kyungwon. “Is there? Are you harboring any dark secrets?”

Soonyoung just did tequila shots with Kyungwon and some of her friends, so he blames that for the rush of heat to his chest when Seokmin’s gaze falters away from his and goes a little darker. “Guess it depends on how observant you are, hyung.” He pulls his hand back, fingertips brushing just barely past the skin on the back of Soonyoung’s neck.

Kyungwon sighs and tips her head back on the couch, oblivious to Soonyoung freezing next to her. “I’m a little jealous. You two are so close.”

Soonyoung watches Seokmin jump a little in his seat and pout, threading his fingers through Kyungwon’s. He says something close to her ear in low tones, quiet enough that Soonyoung wouldn’t be able to hear very well in the first place but he definitely can’t hear with the blood rushing past his ears.

It gets worse when he stumbles up and off of the couch, and he takes an extra step to balance out the sudden light-headedness.

“’M gonna, just…” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder, in the vague direction of the exit. “Um. See you.”

Seokmin blinks up at him, eyes suddenly wide and with none of the hints of shadows that were in them just seconds ago. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, um, probably.” He feels a little sick, now, and only a bit of it is because of the tequila suddenly churning in his stomach. “I’ll find Jihoon and go back with him, don’t worry about me.”

Seokmin frowns. Kyungwon smiles, tips her head onto Seokmin’s shoulder, and wiggles her fingers tipsily at Soonyoung. “Have a good night!”

They look good together, Soonyoung thinks as he waves back to her and then does an off-balance pivot turn to push through the crowds in the opposite direction. They’re both tall, well-proportioned, good-looking. That makes sense. That’s not weird at all.

When Soonyoung finds him hanging around some of the production stoners, Jihoon takes one look at him and silently tugs him to the door by the hem of his sweatshirt.

“You’re the best,” Soonyoung feels the need to assure him, head tipped down onto Jihoon’s shoulder even though their height difference means he’s hunched over a little. “You’d never keep me in the dark about the new love of your life.”

“That would require there to be one, but you know I haven’t exactly been busy since we were a thing.” Jihoon says flatly, but he pulls Soonyoung closer and grabs his phone when it almost slips out of his hand. “Jesus, be careful, you don’t want to have to replace this thing when you drop it into a sewer drain.”

“I wouldn’t have to respond to any texts if I dropped it. Or feel responsible for liking people’s couple posts on Instagram.” He stumbles a little over the word ‘responsible’, and steps right in a puddle which soaks through his sneakers instantly.

“Why are you in such rough shape tonight?” They get to their apartment building eventually and Jihoon makes them take the stairs because he’s into efficiency and not into standing in an elevator that creaks too much. “I thought you weren’t interested in dating Seokmin.”

“I’m _not_.” It’s really important to stress this, Soonyoung figures, and he stomps up the stairs with a purpose that has Jihoon spotting him from the back in case he slips. “It’s just, he didn’t even _tell_ me about her.”

“You’ve said that, multiple times.” Jihoon manages to get them both into their apartment and dump Soonyoung on their couch. He stands in front of Soonyoung and crosses his arms. “Are you okay? Seriously.”

Now sounds like a good time to lie down, so Soonyoung does. “I don’t really know.” He shuts his eyes and burrows a little into the collar of his sweatshirt, which is big enough that he can yank the sleeves over his hands and curl them up under his head. “Is it dumb that I miss him?”

There’s a moment of silence, and Soonyoung actually almost dozes off before Jihoon cards a hand through his hair carefully. “You’re both kind of dumb in that respect, I think.”

That doesn’t make as much sense as most of what Jihoon usually says. It’s alright, though, because Soonyoung’s out like a light in just a few minutes. His phone’s sitting on the other end of the couch when he wakes up, battery dead, and when it boots it back up after being plugged in there’s a worried text from Seokmin and a friend request from Kyungwon.

 

It’s late – or, rather, it’s early. Soonyoung’s lying on the smooth floor of the dance practice room that the team reserves for most of their practices, sweating and panting up at the clock that reads just past 4 in the morning. Their showcase is coming up, at the end of April, and he has about three weeks to finish choreographing, teaching, and practicing the small group hip hop number that he just got passed the other day.

It’s probably impossible, but Soonyoung worked hard to get to choreograph anything for the team, even as a sophomore. He doesn’t need to sleep that bad, he thinks, blinking sweat out of his eyes and pushing his bangs off his forehead with a hand. Tomorrow’s a Friday, and then he’ll have all of the weekend to work on it. That’s doable.

His phone dings from across the room, where it’s tucked in his gym bag. It’s probably Jihoon, he figures, as he rolls over onto his stomach and tries to pull together the energy to push himself up into a sitting position. The guy’s practically nocturnal too these days, with all the pressure of upcoming exams.

Soonyoung finally manages to sit and is contemplating the pros and cons of standing up when the practice room door creaks open carefully. He blinks, startled, when Seokmin pokes his head in and looks just as surprised. “Hyung?”

“Hey.” Soonyoung coughs a little, throat dry, and reaches over to grab his water bottle. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I could probably as you the same thing.” Seokmin leans against the door jam, looking at him. He’s in sweats and a baseball hat, with his backpack slung half on one shoulder. “I was looking for Minghao, he said that he might be staying late for practice.”

“Haven’t seen him.” Soonyoung shrugs and drinks half the bottle at once. “Why are you here?”

“Studying. I have a test tomorrow.” Seokmin finally walks in and lets the door close behind him as he rubs at his eyes. “I think I finally have to give in and get some sleep, though. I was looking to see if Minghao wanted to walk back with me.”

Soonyoung hums and tips his head up to look at Seokmin when he walks closer. “I have to finish choreographing something for the dance team.” He glances over at the clock one more time. “It might have gotten away from me, a bit.”

Seokmin laughs in that soft, genuine way that he does, the way that makes Soonyoung’s chest warm just a little for making him do that, and he sits down across from Soonyoung on the ground. “You look kind of dead.”

“Thanks,” Soonyoung says, pulling a face at Seokmin who laughs and leans back on his hands. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages, what’s been up?” It actually had been a while, maybe two weeks since they got food together the last time and even longer since they saw each other for longer than that.

Like he thought, college made things weird.

Seokmin shrugs, glancing away from him and out into the practice room. “Nothing too exciting. Still getting used to university-level classes,” he says, shooting an embarrassed grin at Soonyoung.

“Yeah, it sucks.” Soonyoung messes with his shoelaces a bit so that he’s looking down when he continues. “How’s, um, Kyungwon? I haven’t seen her in a while either.”

Seokmin shifts his weight on his hands and takes a second before responding. “Actually, uh. We broke up, a few weeks ago.”

Soonyoung starts and looks up, quick enough that he catches Seokmin’s expression. It’s a mix of awkwardness and something else, but whatever it is has the tips of his ears going red. “You did? Why? I didn’t know that.”

Seokmin folds his hands together in his lap, a nervous habit that Soonyoung recognizes from when they were kids. “Not for any big reason, I don’t know. We just figured that we worked better as friends. It was a mutual thing,” he continues, and scratches at the side of his neck where he’s still going all flushed.

Soonyoung isn’t prepared for the way his stomach swoops at all of this. “What happened?” Something occurs to him, and he instinctively tugs his tank top collar up higher so that it covers just a bit more of the dark mark on his chest. “Was it, um, a mark thing?”

Seokmin shakes his head. “No, she was fine with that.” That’s news to Soonyoung, the fact that Kyungwon knew about him at all. “It was just – we were the first people the other one had ever dated, you know? So we didn’t really know what we were doing.”

“Right.”

“It’s for the best.” Seokmin huffs and grins a little sideways at him. “I’m sure you’ll hear from her at some point, I think she wants to join the dance team next year.”

Soonyoung pushes his hair out of his eyes and off of his forehead again. It’s getting a little shaggy, and keeps flopping back into his face. “So she doesn’t hate me?”

“No,” Seokmin laughs out, and taps him on the ankle with the toe of his sneaker. “Why would she?”

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung finds himself saying defensively. “I thought you were worried about it, I thought that might have been why you didn’t tell me you were dating her in the beginning.”

Seokmin’s eyebrows crawl together and he shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you didn’t exactly text or anything when you got your big confession,” Soonyoung says, entirely too whiny for his age but he can’t help himself. “I thought you might be worried that your new girlfriend would be scared off if she met your mutual mark.”

Seokmin stares at him and then shakes his head again in wonder. “No? I told you she was fine with it. She knew about you in the first place. I told her that we weren’t, you know, anything.”

“Guess I just didn’t warrant a notice, then,” Soonyoung replies, back to picking at his shoelaces. “No, that’s cool, Seokmin.”

“I mean, you didn’t exactly tell me about Jihoon.” Soonyoung startles and looks back up at Seokmin, who already seems like he wishes he could take the words back.

“What?”

“What I said,” Seokmin mumbles into the collar of his sweatshirt, looking like he wants to draw entirely into it like a turtle into its shell. “Minghao told me that some of the dance club juniors were talking about you guys.”

Soonyoung blinks a few times. “Saying what? We didn’t _date_ , that doesn’t count!”

“You did stuff, though,” Seokmin insists, face entirely red now. “And all I heard about him was that he was your roommate and that he was from Busan.”

“What, you’re mad that I didn’t text you all about some, like,” Soonyoung waves his hands in front of him incredulously. “Friends with benefits thing?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Seokmin huffs. “I just don’t see how it’s all that different from me and Kyungwon.”

“You were _dating_ her. You guys had couple tee shirts.”

“Just one,” Seokmin insists.

“Whatever, that’s one more than me and Jihoon have.”

“You spend like all your time with him!”

“Because we’re roommates? And he’s my friend?”

“And we’re soulmates,” Seokmin says with an air of finality, and looks up at Soonyoung again. “I don’t care if we’re not, like, romantic, or anything.” Soonyoung’s stomach twists itself into a knot. “But I think we should talk to each other about this kind of thing.”

Soonyoung looks over Seokmin, but he only lasts a few seconds of enduring Seokmin’s earnest expression before he sighs and flops back to lie down on the floor again. “Fine,” he says, and rolls his head to the side a bit so that he can look at Seokmin still. “Expect full updates about my entirely empty love life, then.”

Seokmin grins hesitantly at him from his criss-cross position just a few feet away. “I’ll look forward to it, hyung.”

- _twenty_ -

After the summer, which Soonyoung spends going back and forth between his summer job at his old dance academy and sitting by the river with Seokmin, things get better. Going back to university isn’t as weird and disjointed with their friendship, and by October Seokmin ends up all but moving into his apartment.

Seokmin visited a lot in the first place, especially after he and Kyungwon broke up. Then, when he figured out just how bad Soonyoung and Jihoon were at making anything other than ramen or instant ddeokbokki for dinner, he had freaked out a little.

“You have, like, _a_ vegetable in here,” Seokmin says, head half in the fridge and voice echoing in the emptiness in horror. “And I’m not even sure if this kimchi counts because I know your mom sent it to you.”

“We’re Korean, kimchi’s all we need,” Soonyoung pipes up from his seat on the counter where he was watching Seokmin panic. “I can’t cook, Seokminnie, you know this.”

Seokmin lets out a gusty sigh and closes the fridge before turning to pin him with a determined look. “Go get your wallet.”

“Why,” Soonyoung drones, although he was already swinging his legs to jump down to the floor. “Are you not treating your hyung?”

“We’re going to the grocery store. I’m not letting you get scurvy. Your mom would actually have me killed.” Seokmin grins sunnily as Soonyoung grabs his wallet from the kitchen table. “I always wanted to try some of the recipes I see online.”

Seokmin doesn’t come over every day, because that would be ridiculous, but he makes dinner more often than he doesn’t. It’s pretty awesome, because Soonyoung gets good food and an excuse to perch on the kitchen counter and bother Seokmin while he cooks. It’s been a good routine so far.

Soonyoung will sit on the ground in front of their couch doing his education major work while Seokmin bites the caps of all of his pens and practices his voice pieces. It’s easy, and familiar, and feels almost exactly like back when Soonyoung was fourteen and would take his homework over to Seokmin’s room.

It’s dumb and sentimental, but Seokmin smells exactly the same as he did back then too, and Soonyoung is a sucker for the familiar musk of his sweatshirts.

There’s just enough room on their couch, too, because Jihoon likes to curl up against one arm rest while Seokmin takes the other end. Soonyoung squeezes in between, and takes to leaning against Seokmin because the dude wears some comfy sweaters, he’s like a giant pillow.

“Thanks, I think,” Seokmin says one day when Soonyoung voices this thought, and shifts a little underneath Soonyoung’s cheek, which is pressed against his shoulder while they watch soccer.

“You’re welcome, darling,” Soonyoung wheedles, voice slightly muffled from the position.

He can almost hear Jihoon roll his eyes. “Again, I can leave whenever you two want me to.”

Soonyoung twists, leaning his back against Seokmin’s side and shoves his feet against Jihoon’s thigh. “You wouldn’t dare, you know you love me.”

Jihoon tears his eyes away from the game on the TV for a second, which should be worrying on its own without the way his jaw tightens a little as he considers Soonyoung. “Actually, I have to tell you something.”

 

“Do you still have that free room in your apartment?”

It’s April, but Soonyoung still hasn’t really forgiven Jihoon. He looks up at him from his convenience store ramen, steam curling into the air. “Yeah, assuming that you’re still planning on moving out, you traitor. Why? Did you finally find me someone to sublet?”

“Maybe better.” Jihoon cracks open his can coffee with one hand and unlocks his phone with the other. “There’s this freshman who’s friends with some of the other music production students. I guess he’s having some issues with his random roommate, and he’s looking for a different apartment.”

He taps the phone a few times before pulling up a picture and passes it over to Soonyoung. “Boo Seungkwan. He’s from Jeju, so he can’t go home that often, but he seems like a nice kid.”

Boo Seungkwan has round cheeks and round eyes and looks darling. “Yeah, I’ll message him. Thanks.”

Jihoon nods and takes his phone back, peering over at Soonyoung thoughtfully. “You’re sure that you don’t just want to ask Seokmin to move in, instead?”

“What? I – he already has a place to live.”

“Yeah, but isn’t he over at yours half the time, anyways?”

He is, kind of, even if Soonyoung doesn’t think it’s excessive enough to merit just moving in.

Back in at their usual window seat in the convenience store, Soonyoung pouts at Jihoon and breaks his disposable chopsticks apart. “I’m still mad at you for transferring.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes but leans a little into Soonyoung’s side. “You’ll be fine. At least you have more friends then you did when I first met you.”

“I guess.” Soonyoung pushes his ramen around in the aluminum dish to try to get it to cool and Jihoon settles an arm against the back of his stool. “Hey.”

“What.”

“We should go drinking tonight.” Soonyoung hooks his feet into the bar of his stool and props an elbow on the counter so he can look at Jihoon fully. “Really send you off with a bang.”

Jihoon gives him a wry smirk. “I’m not leaving until after the semester, you know.”

“Yeah, whatever, maybe I just need an excuse to drink.” Soonyoung glances out the window at the people walking by. “It’s a nice day, it’s spring. I think it’s a good idea.”

Jihoon huffs and snaps the tab off of his can. “Fine, you weirdo, but only if you buy my drinks. It’s gonna be my send-off party, right?”

Soonyoung crows successfully and slaps Jihoon on the back, who threatens him with a fist but then just goes back to sipping his canned coffee.

They dick around in their apartment for the rest of the afternoon, and Soonyoung blasts off mass messages to all of the dance crew and Jihoon’s composition friends. They end up gathering a group of 15 or so people, and they all crowd into a samgyupsal place that’s nearby campus, close enough that the grandma who owns it knows them all.

“Look at you, bringing in so many handsome men,” she croons at Soonyoung, who grins cheekily at her and accepts her face pats with good humor.

“It’s all for you~” He sing-songs right back. “I thought they needed to see the most beautiful woman in Seoul.”

She coos even longer and pinches his cheeks with both hands before waving them off to take over the back corner tables in the restaurant.

“Where’s Seokmin?” He asks Minghao when he finally fights his way to the table next to Jihoon and sits down heavily.

“Not coming,” Minghao answers. “He says he wants to, but he’s supposed to call his mom tonight and didn’t want to miss it.”

“He’s a good son, Soonyoung,” Jihoon butts in. “You should be proud.”

Soonyoung elbows Jihoon, because Minghao immediately shoots him a confused look. “Whatever, the guy is the best, we all know that already,” he grouses, and looks around for the owner. “We’re going to need, like, a lot of soju.”

They drink a lot of soju. Soonyoung drinks at least as much as Jihoon, probably more, because at a certain point Jihoon starts saying that, as the eldest of the two, Soonyoung should do the shots that Jihoon doesn’t want to do anymore. Soonyoung’s a good friend, so of course he does.

Soonyoung should have maybe thought ahead a bit more about this, though, because he’s infamous for being a weepy drunk when there’s something to be weepy about.

“Are you crying?” Nayoung asks when it’s nearing one in the morning, and leans forward over the table to pinch his cheek. “Aw, our Soonyoungie, such a sentimental heart.” She grins at him, wide and bunny-like with her front teeth poking lower than the rest.

Soonyoung sniffs and buries his face in Jihoon’s neck, flapping a hand to shoo Nayoung away like an annoying fly. “I’m sensitive, fuck off. My best friend is leaving me and moving to _America_ , I’m never gonna see him again.”

“I’ll be back during summer breaks,” Jihoon reminds him, but he’s tipsy enough that he just cuddles back into Soonyoung instead of pushing him away. “You’ll be ok.”

Soonyoung snuffles more and wipes his eyes on Jihoon’s t-shirt, which does earn him a shove. “You’re still a traitor. You better hire me to choreograph the music videos when you’re a big, famous producer.”

“I promise I will.”

“Good.” Soonyoung paws at the pocket of his jeans and pulls his phone out to check the time. “Make him drink more, you guys, I’m heading out.”

Minghao and one of Jihoon’s friends, a round-eyed girl names Jihyo, blink up at him as he hauls himself into a standing position. “Are you ok to go back by yourself?” Jihyo asks, hesitating as she offers him a hand to support himself when he sways a little bit.

“Take a bus,” Jihoon orders him from his seat. “You’re gonna run into street signs if you walk back.”

“I’ll be fine. Who’s the eldest again?” Soonyoung shoves his phone back in his pocket. “I’ll text when I get home, happy?”

“Thrilled.” Jihoon doesn’t exactly smile, but his eyes soften underneath the brim of his hat. “Thanks, Soonyoung.”

“You’re welcome.” He sniffs and dusts his shoulders off. “Try to keep the party alive, now that the real life of it is leaving.” He hugs the grandma owner on his way out, and she squeezes him tight and insists that he come back for more in the future.

As usual, Soonyoung should learn not to underestimate Lee Jihoon’s scarily accurate predictions of the future. He makes it on foot about five blocks, halfway to his apartment building, when he steps wrong on a section of uneven pavement.

He goes one way and his foot goes the other, and when Soonyoung completely eats shit and falls to the ground his ankle does something that ankles should never do.

“Fuuuuck,” he breathes out, clinging to his ankle once he maneuvers himself into a sitting position against the wall of the closed cosmetics store that he fell in front of. “Fuck, Soonyoung, you idiot.”

He tries a few times to essentially hop up the street, but only gets another few yards further before he has to admit defeat. There’s a bench next to a bus stop, although the night bus doesn’t stop at this street, and Soonyoung sits down heavily and leans against the glass of the tiny shelter built at the stop.

He’s drunk enough that he doesn’t really remember calling Seokmin. The next thing he knows he has his phone pressed to his ear, and he’s whining lowly into the silence of the night.

“I _fell_ , Seokmin, and Jihoonie didn’t even come save me,” he drawls, picking at a hole in his jeans.

“Are you ok?” Seokmin’s voice sounds tinny and harried from the other end of the phone. “Can you make it back?”

“Seokmin,” Soonyoung whines, tipping his head back against the glass and shutting his eyes. “My ankle hurts.”

“I know, you told me.” There’s a thumping sound from the other end, and then Seokmin’s voice is back. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

Seokmin talks Soonyoung through dropping a pin at his location and sending it to Seokmin, because Soonyoung first just tries to take a snapchat with a geotag and use that instead. “Just, don’t move,” Seokmin continues, sounding very brave and courageous and handsome in Soonyoung’s ear. “I’ll be there soon.”

“You’re the best soulmate ever,” Soonyoung breathes out, too distracted by the throbbing pain in his ankle to notice the way Seokmin inhales at that. “Hurry up, it’s cold.”

Soonyoung’s not sure if he dozes off a little on the bench or if Seokmin’s just that fast, but it seems like only fifteen or so minutes before he shows up. “How do you get into these situations, hyung?” Seokmin pants out, leaning forward with his hands propped on his knees as he tries to get his breath back. “Why’d you leave by yourself.”

Soonyoung shrugs, eyes half-lidded as he looks at Seokmin. “Dunno. Just wanted to leave. I was getting kind of bummed out, but I didn’t want Jihoonie to notice.”

Seokmin looks up and blinds Soonyoung with the sudden light of his grin. “Right, of course.” He looks Soonyoung over, eyes catching on the foot that he has set carefully against the pavement. “Do you think you can walk?”

Soonyoung thinks, suddenly, of twerpy pre-teen Seokmin and an old oak tree. “No.”

“No?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He puts on his best pout and nudges Seokmin’s thigh with his good foot. “Can you carry me?”

Seokmin grunts when Soonyoung jumps up onto his back, only half as high as he usually could since he can only put weight on one foot. “You’re heavy, hyung.”

“’S all muscle,” Soonyoung says, already burying his face into the hood of Seokmin’s sweatshirt. “You’ve been working out, haven’t you? You can handle it.”

Seokmin shakes his head and adjusts Soonyoung’s weight on his back easily before he starts walking back the way he came. “Let’s get you home.”

Soonyoung hums in assent and sighs against the back of Seokmin’s neck. “You smell good.”

“What?” Seokmin laughs, surprised.

“You do, you always have.” Soonyoung huffs and closes his eyes against the soft fabric of his hoodie. “You’re great, seriously, who else would actually come all the way out here at one in the morning?”

“Jihoon probably would, if you asked him,” Seokmin replies, trudging up the slight slope of the street. “He’s usually awake this late.”

“Yeah, but he’d just make fun of me and make me walk myself.” Seokmin’s shoulders are wide and sturdy where Soonyoung wraps his arms over them, and he links his fingers together in the front so that he stays on. “Not you, though, you’re the best~”

Seokmin chuckles but doesn’t respond, and the gentle rocking of the walk back quickly settles Soonyoung into a doze. He wakes up when they reach the ground floor of his apartment building, face mashed into the back of Seokmin’s neck as the other boy tries to carefully wake him up without dropping him.

“Need you to do the keypad, hyung,” Seokmin says, voice hushed. Soonyoung nods and wiggles off of Seokmin’s back, accepting the arm around his waist that Seokmin immediately offers so that Soonyoung can lean against him instead of using his bad foot.

“D’you think you can get to bed yourself?” Seokmin asks when they make it inside and wait for the elevator. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks so darling and concerned that Soonyoung just has to pat him on the chest.

“No,” he says, because apparently his mouth is working without contacting his brain first these days. “Can you come up?”

Seokmin frowns, all worried, but nods. He helps Soonyoung hop in and out of the elevator, and then hovers by the door to his room as Soonyoung struggles out of his jeans and into a pair of shorts.

“You ok?” He asks, hilariously keeping his eyes averted until Soonyoung has pants on.

“Mmhm,” Soonyoung hums, turning around and flopping straight into bed.

Seokmin huffs fondly and steps forward, close enough to the head of Soonyoung’s bed that he can hesitantly pat him on the head. “You’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow.”

Soonyoung whines in denial and traps Seokmin’s outstretched hand in his. “Nuh-uh, I’m a star, I’ll feel fine.” He presses his face against his and Seokmin’s hands and lets out a long breath. “Good night. Love you, Seokminnie.”

He’s out almost immediately, lulled by the brief nap on the way there and the warmth of Seokmin’s broad palm between his. He doesn’t hear Seokmin’s reply, if there is one.

 

Soonyoung wakes up to hazy morning light pooling in through his half-opened curtains and the sound of soft singing from behind his closed door. He lies in bed for a second, face mushed into his pillow, and wonders if he’s dreaming.

Then, he shifts the wrong way and twinges his sprained ankle. Nope. Not a dream.

He thinks it’s Jihoon at first, singing the latest of his new compositions while he absentmindedly pours himself a bowl of cereal. Eventually Soonyoung finally manages to hobble down the hall to the kitchen after brushing his teeth, yawning hugely and ruffling his bedhead into something more presentable. Seokmin looks back at him from the stovetop.

“You’re up already?” Seokmin asks, breaking off from his song and turning to lean against the counter, facing Soonyoung. “How’re you feeling?”

Soonyoung hops closer, grabbing the back of one of the chairs at their table to balance himself. “You’re still here?”

He can see Seokmin’s throat bob when he swallows, and he turns back to poke at the omelet he has going in a pan on the stove. “Yeah. It was pretty late when I got you back so I, um, kind of slept on the couch.” The back of his neck starts to go red, and Soonyoung takes the chance to hop the four feet to the counter.

“Oh, ok.” Seokmin’s in the same thing he was wearing last night; track pants and a sleeveless tank that he must have been wearing underneath the hoodie. Soonyoung’s eyes stray down to the mark on Seokmin’s upper arm – brown and kind of shaped like an upside-down pear, wider at the top than at the bottom. There’s a scattering of freckles at the top that he doesn’t really remember.

Seokmin side-eyes him, mouth quirking up at the edge. “Are you hungry?”

“Why? Is that for me?”

Laughing, Seokmin pushes at the eggs with a spatula to roll them up. “It can be. I feel bad for you and your ankle.”

Soonyoung cheers and wraps his arms around Seokmin’s waist, squeezing as hard as he can without overbalancing on his one good foot. “ _Best_ soulmate, seriously, I’m not kidding.”

He mostly blames the early hour and the throbbing in his ankle when he leans up the extra couple centimeters required to smack a kiss on Seokmin’s cheek. Seokmin starts, and turns to the side enough for Soonyoung’s aim to be off, and he ends up just off the side of his mouth.

Time goes kind of slow and wonky, and Soonyoung’s ankle throbs in beat with his quickening pulse when Seokmin pulls back just a little and blinks at him, wide-eyed. His eyes flicker down, and Soonyoung’s suddenly very aware of the low fall of his t-shirt collar. It’s an old one, all stretched out and faded, and he usually doesn’t wear it out of the apartment because it basically puts his mark on display.

Seokmin looks back up at Soonyoung, eyes wide and dark and Soonyoung props himself on the counter with one hand, keeping the other one at Seokmin’s waist. His chest goes hot, the circle of the mark almost burning. It feels entirely, entirely natural for him to bounce up on the ball of his good foot one more time, supporting his weight on the counter, and press his mouth to Seokmin’s.

The mark on his chest flares hot, hotter than he’s ever felt it any other time, before cooling immediately when Seokmin pulls back. His lips thin a little, pressed together as he regards Soonyoung. Then in one swift motion he turns, flicks the stove off, moves the pan to an empty burner, turns back, pulls Soonyoung in tight around his waist and kisses him again.

It’s so – it’s everything, it’s warmth and the morning light seeping in through the windows and the pounding of his heartbeat in his temples and sprained ankle, and Soonyoung can’t help but wilt a little in the face of it all. Somehow, Seokmin kisses exactly like Soonyoung figured he would; careful but firm, with his big hands cupping Soonyoung’s waist and making him feel like he’s much more fragile than a 65-kilogram college student should.

Soonyoung refuses to be embarrassed when a whine creeps up his throat as Seokmin presses him carefully against the kitchen counter, lips moving against his and just so, so hot against his front. He winds his arms around his neck instead, around his shoulders and cards one hand through Seokmin’s hair as he kisses him.

This is it. This is what made kissing Jihoon nice but not interesting enough to continue for very long. This is why Soonyoung always felt himself tracking Seokmin’s movements whenever they were in the room together; it means that now he can almost predict what he’s going to do before he does it. He responds easily when Seokmin’s mouth opens against his, half-sighing into it.

This is it, this is familiar but thrilling in its newness, and the only thing keeping him from climbing Seokmin like a tree is his sprained ankle.

“Wait, do you – is this ok?” Seokmin asks, rushed and throaty against Soonyoung’s mouth. “You said, um,” he trails off distracted when Soonyoung takes the opportunity to nip at the line of his jaw, and his hands tighten around his waist. “You said you didn’t want to feel forced by the mark, or anything.”

“I was like sixteen when I said that,” Soonyoung argues back, thrilling in the shiver that he feels work its way down Seokmin’s spine when he finds a certain spot on his neck. “I was dumb, and also I’ve wanted to kiss you since then, idiot.”

“You have?” Seokmin blinks at him, then pushes forward to kiss him again, hard. “We could have been doing this since then, you mean?”

Soonyoung squeaks when Seokmin’s hand slips a bit against the small of his back, two fingers ducking just barely into the waistband of his shorts. “The – the whole dating other people thing was dumb of me, wasn’t it?”

Seokmin snorts and kisses his mouth, then his temple. “You meant well, hyung.” He moves back to his mouth, and Soonyoung grips the back of his neck so he can haul himself up and surge back against the kiss.

Time speeds up, slippery like an eel. Seokmin coaxes Soonyoung away from the counter, worried about his ankle despite how red his lips are and how Soonyoung could feel him growing hard against his hip. Soonyoung allows himself be pulled away and towards the chairs at the table, but under one condition.

“You first.”

Seokmin looks precious like this, torn between confused and turned on. “What?”

Soonyoung hops a little in place and points at the chair that Seokmin had pulled out. “You first.”

It clicks in Seokmin’s mind, and he sits heavily in the chair before gently tugging on Soonyoung’s hips, helping him keep his balance. Soonyoung straddles him and perches very elegantly, in his opinion, on his lap before going right back to the kissing.

 “You’re just so handsome,” Soonyoung whines, cupping Seokmin’s jaw and nipping chastising bites at his lower lip. “How did you get so handsome? Where did this come from?” He asks, and rolls his hips against Seokmin’s.

Seokmin groans throatily and his fingers dance along the bones of Soonyoung’s hips. “Speak for yourself, hyung.” The honorific makes Soonyoung’s hips twitch again, and Seokmin grins dazedly. “Hyung, you’re so cute, you make me crazy whenever I see you dance,” he croons, and Soonyoung just moans and pushes Seokmin’s shirt up enough to scrabble at his stomach.

“If anyone’s going crazy here it’s me.” Seokmin practically jumps out of his skin when Jihoon snaps at them from behind Soonyoung’s back. “Guys, it’s nine in the morning, can we all calm down? For a second?”

Soonyoung lets Seokmin hide his face in his neck, hands twitching in mortification at his sides while Soonyoung twists enough to grin at Jihoon. “You’re gonna miss me, don’t even lie.”

Jihoon rubs his eyes, rubbing his temples against a headache, and pivots on his sock feet to walk back to his room. “I _was_ going to, but now I think you’ll be fine without me.”

He leaves, and Soonyoung directs his insane grin back to Seokmin, who has turned the exact color of a tomato. “I forgot he was here,” Seokmin says, muffled, against the collar of Soonyoung’s shirt. “I can’t believe I forgot he was here.”

Soonyoung can’t help but laugh a little crazily and scrub a hand through Seokmin’s hair in an attempt to be comforting. “It’s ok, I still love you.”

Seokmin stills, and looks back up at Soonyoung, a bit like he got punched in the stomach. “I love you too.”

That thrills right through Soonyoung’s blood stream, popping like fireworks and sending sparks to his fingertips. “I love you,” he says again, smile breaking even wider, and he smacks a kiss onto Seokmin’s mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

 

 

 

 

- **twenty-five** -

“Am I going crazy,” Seokmin mumbles into the back of Soonyoung’s neck, shifting to push closer to him underneath the blankets. “Or is someone singing Urban Zakapa in our kitchen?”

Soonyoung groans and burrows his face into the pillows in an attempt to hide from the morning. “It’s a _Sunday_ , what is that kid doing?”

There’s a crash from down the hall, and then a pair of laughs ring out from what sounds like the kitchen. “Oh.” Soonyoung rolls over and huddles against Seokmin’s side, glaring at the door to their room. “That grad student crush of his is here, that’s what he’s doing.”

“I don’t think it counts as a crush anymore. They’ve been mutually marked for like a year.”

Soonyoung harrumphs and pushes himself into a sitting position, one side of his hair sticking completely up like a bird’s nest. “Today’s the day that I murder Choi Hansol, then.”

Seokmin laughs and flings an arm over Soonyoung’s lap. “Seungkwan will be so sad, hyung, think of the puppy eyes.”

“Oh, I am.” Stretching his arms high above his head, Soonyoung twitches when another loud bang sounds out from the kitchen. “Do you think they’re breaking all of our things, or just trying to have kitchen sex?”

Seokmin takes advantage of his brief moment of distraction to grab his waist and roll Soonyoung over on top of him, which he goes along with good-naturedly. “Either way, wouldn’t you hate to interrupt that?”

Soonyoung peers down at him, eyes squinting with sleepiness, and then smirks. “We better keep ourselves busy, then,” he replies, and the next thing he knows Seokmin has an armful of warm, wiggly Soonyoung. It’s always been his favorite way to wake up.

Outside their window, the light rain that had been falling finally breaks, and a beam of watery summer sunlight casts itself across the bed. Seokmin smooths his hands down the sides of his beautiful, ridiculous soulmate, and thanks his lucky stars.


End file.
